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Sky Burial Book

In the world of fiction reviewing, extraordinary is an over-used word. Yet there really is no other way to describe Chinese author Xinran's second book, Sky Burial. It is extraordinary in so many ways--the subject matter, the setting, the central character, but mostly its authenticity and the author's continuing search for the woman whose life is told here. Sky Burial is the true story of a Chinese woman's 30-year search through Tibet for news of her lost, presumed dead, husband. Xinran is working as a radio journalist on a women's programme when a listener calls in to tell her about Shuwen. Xinran travels hundreds of miles across China to interview her and, over two days, Shuwen opens her heart and reveals her tragic, scarcely imaginable life story. Xinran returns to her life and spends the subsequent 10 years trying to find Shuwen again, researching her story and writing this book--a homage to an ordinary woman's extraordinary life-long search for the truth. The story is a simple one: Shuwen meets her intelligent, idealistic husband-to-be while they are both training to be doctors. After less than 100 days of marriage, Kejun travels to Tibet as a Chinese army doctor and before long, Shuwen is notified that he has died in an "incident". Shuwen decides to join the army herself, travel to Tibet and find out if he really is dead, and if so, how and why he died. And then, as if travelling to a closed country like Tibet as a young woman in the 1950s is not difficult enough, Shuwen quickly becomes separated from her unit and, close to death herself, is taken in by a family of Tibetan nomads. Her transformation from Chinese doctor to nomadic Buddhist is a long, painful and at many turns, deeply distressing one. Sky Burial is a slight book--little more than an extended short story--and yet the ground it covers is immense, not just because of the fascinating glimpse it offers into a land and a people still largely unknown in the West. Despite its tragic themes of loss and survival in one of the world's harshest landscapes, it is an uplifting tale of unwavering loyalty and immeasurable inner strength. --Carey GreenRead More

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  • Amazon

    In March 1958, a Chinese woman learns that her husband, an idealistic army doctor, has died whilst serving in Tibet. Determined to know what has happened to him, she sets off to join his regiment. To her horror, she walks into a bloody conflict, with the Chinese subject to terrifying attacks from Tibetan guerrillas.

  • TheBookPeople

    Xinran's extraordinary second book takes the reader right to the hidden heart of one of the world's most mysterious and inaccessible countries. In March 1958, a Chinese woman learns that her husband, an idealistic army doctor, has died whilst serving in Tibet. Determined to know what has happened to him, she sets off courageously to join his regiment. To her horror, instead of finding a Tibetan people welcoming their Chinese 'liberators', she walks into a bloody conflict, with the Chinese subject to terrifying attacks from Tibetan guerrillas. Before she can know her husband's fate, she is taken hostage and embarks on a life-changing journey through the Tibetan countryside - a journey that will last twenty years and lead her to a deep appreciation of Tibetan culture in all its beauty and brutality. She meets travellers who tell stories of a stranger given a Tibetan sky burial (his corpse left in the open where sacred eagles come down to take pieces up to paradise). Tragically, when she finally discovers that her husband sacrificed himself to create peace between two fatally different societies, she must carry her knowledge back to a China that, in her absence, has experienced the Cultural Revolution and changed beyond recognition...

  • Foyles

    As a young girl in China Xinran heard a rumour about a soldier in Tibet who had been brutally fed to the vultures in a ritual known as a sky burial: the tale frightened and fascinated her. Several decades later Xinran met Shu Wan, a Chinese woman who had spent years searching for her missing husband who had been serving as a doctor in Tibet; her extraordinary life story would unravel the legend of the sky burial. For thirty years she was lost in the wild and alien landscape of Tibet, in the vast and silent plateaus and the magisterial mountain ranges, living with communities of nomads moving with the seasons and struggling to survive.In this haunting book, Xinran recreates Shu Wen's remarkable journey in an epic story of love, loss, loyalty and survival. Moving, shocking and, ultimately, uplifting Sky Burial paints a unique portrait of a woman and a land, both at the mercy of fate and politics.

  • ASDA

    In March 1958 a Chinese woman learns that her husband an idealistic army doctor has died whilst serving in Tibet. Determined to know what has happened to him she sets off to join his regiment. To her horror she walks into a bloody conflict with the Chinese subject to terrifying attacks from Tibetan guerrillas.

  • BookDepository

    Sky Burial : Paperback : Vintage Publishing : 9780099461937 : 0099461935 : 07 Jul 2005 : As a young girl in China Xinran heard a rumour about a soldier in Tibet who had been brutally fed to the vultures in a ritual known as a sky burial: the tale frightened and fascinated her.

  • 0099461935
  • 9780099461937
  • Xinran
  • 7 July 2005
  • Vintage
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 176
  • New edition
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